Beauty Myth

"Demi Moore had her image fed through a computer four times to slim her hips for the Vanity Fair cover....Girls see this...and compare themselves to bodies that are no longer even human." - Naomi Wolf, author of "The Beauty Myth"

'AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL' . In the early '90s, Naomi Wolf published a book called "The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are Used Against Women." All these years later, director Darryl Roberts has finally gotten the message: Women suffer all sorts of indignities, anxieties and pain in our futile attempts to achieve a narrow, twisted standard of attractiveness. And on behalf of every woman who's ever turned down that second piece of cake or spent far too much on anti-aging creams, I want to...

American author Naomi Wolf told a feminist forum in London that despite strides in the status of women during the last 30 years, women in the workplace often remain silent on troubling issues in times of economic recession, because they believe they might be replaced, even by other women, if they put up what she terms "a feminist fuss." Wolf spoke at the Royal National Theatre during a tour promoting her book, "The Beauty Myth."

From brilliant polemicals packed with fascinating statistics and anecdotes to riveting novels featuring defiant, iconic heroines, feminist literature has taken many directions since the 1963 publication of Betty Friedan's groundbreaking "The Feminine Mystique." After that classic, here is a Top 10 list of feminist literary works, compiled with input from scholars around the country. 1970 "Our Bodies, Ourselves" by The Boston Women's Health Book Collective ...

Is there anything more sad in our society than cosmetic breast-implant surgery? What does it say about our values? What does it say about how we view women? What it says, according to "The Beauty Myth," by Naomi Wolf, is that "what women look like is considered important because what we say is not." Wolf's analysis of a culture that censors "real women's faces and bodies" is available on cassette in abridged form from Harper Audio (three hours, $16). Although it is, at times, a touch polemical and...

Every day for a year, Mike Lombardi arrived at his gym at 5 a.m. After three hours of lifting weights, he would leave for work, often arriving late. It was back to the gym at lunch for stomach crunches, then again in the evening to work his shoulders, maybe his legs. This was not the behavior of a disciplined man. It was the behavior of a sick man. Lombardi suffers from muscle dysmorphia, a little-known obsessive-compulsive disorder found mostly in men. Those who have it grow huge muscles from...

What good is power if you don't use it? That's the position many successful women are trapped in, according to Naomi Wolf, author of "The Beauty Myth" (Anchor/Doubleday, $11). Wolf is working on a book that challenges successful women to use their power to empower other women. "Feminism has been rightly focused on what we lack for so long, but ... some women lack the ownership of the power they have," says Wolf, whose new book, "Power Feminism: How to Love the Women's Movement Again," is...

Seven years ago when Tom Forsythe, an artist and photographer, was searching for a subject for a new project, he settled on Barbie--producing 78 photographic images showing the doll nude, and sometimes posed provocatively, in or around various household appliances. "I thought the pictures needed something that really said `crass consumerism.' And to me, that's Barbie," Forsythe said. "The doll is issued in every possible role you can imagine and comes with every possible accessory for...

By Karen DeCrow, an attorney in Jamesville, N.Y., specializing in constitutional law, gender and age discrimination | February 20, 1994

Over the years, the most ponderous problem for women has been that men think that men and women are very different. Another of our massive problems is that women also think that men and women are very different. One case in point is Naomi Wolf's new book, "Fire With Fire: The New Female Power and How It Will Change the 21st Century" (Random House, $21). She gives some challenging ideas for the gender debate, but in this Chinese Year of the Dog, she has not found the secret to...

In the media world, everyone's a-titter over the revelation that feminist-author/glam-girl Naomi Wolf has been advising Vice President Al Gore in his bid to become Numero Uno. Or the "Alpha Male," as Wolf reportedly put it. So gleeful has been the response, you'd have thought the VP had been discovered exorcising the demons of his unfortunate childhood with a navy-blue dress. Alas, he was only taking wardrobe advice from the raven-haired Wolf, who, frankly, has nothing...

With freshly minted paperbacks of Naomi Wolf's best-selling 1991 book "The Beauty Myth" clutched in hand, several hundred men and women withstood the Monday night heat to hear Wolf discuss her book and its impact on third-wave feminism at Women and Children First bookstore, 5233 N. Clark St. Wolf, 29, began by discussing the standout points of "The Beauty Myth," mainly that "the anorexically thin, surgically implanted, teen model has taken...

There's a new movie out called "Beautiful Girls." It's about beautiful girls and the boys who drool over them. Here are some of your thoughts on how appearance affects relationships. . . Sondee: "I am one of the beautiful girls. I am tall. I have curves where curves belong. I am a natural blond with blue eyes. I have been featured in a national fitness magazine. I have a body that most women would kill for. I have modeled professionally for five years. Unlike most females, I am comfortable...

From brilliant polemicals packed with fascinating statistics and anecdotes to riveting novels featuring defiant, iconic heroines, feminist literature has taken many directions since the 1963 publication of Betty Friedan's groundbreaking "The Feminine Mystique." After that classic, here is a Top 10 list of feminist literary works, compiled with input from scholars around the country. 1970 "Our Bodies, Ourselves" by The Boston Women's Health Book Collective ...

By Karen DeCrow, an attorney in Jamesville, N.Y., specializing in constitutional law, gender and age discrimination | February 20, 1994

Over the years, the most ponderous problem for women has been that men think that men and women are very different. Another of our massive problems is that women also think that men and women are very different. One case in point is Naomi Wolf's new book, "Fire With Fire: The New Female Power and How It Will Change the 21st Century" (Random House, $21). She gives some challenging ideas for the gender debate, but in this Chinese Year of the Dog, she has not found the secret to...

"It's not easy to pull yourself up by the bootstraps when your boss has his hand on your leg." -Naomi Wolf, author of "The Beauty Myth," on sexual harassment. "I am a true egomaniac-I don`t explain myself. Most of the people accused of egomania are actually insecure-they spend all their time telling people how good they are. A real egomaniac doesn`t waste his time, because they wouldn`t know anyway." -Jazz saxophonist Branford Marsalis. "Deaf people...

Monday night. The Over-the-Hill Gals are stepping out. Destination: Barbara's Bookstore on North Broadway in Chicago for a talk by Naomi Wolf, author of "Fire with Fire," a new book with the provocative subtitle, "The New Female Power and How It Will Change the 21st Century." "Naomi Wolf?" says a friend of the Over-the-Hill Gals. "Is she that feminist who wants to be popular?" He says this as if a popular feminist were about as plausible as a waltzing fish. The Over-the-Hill...

Caution: Fashion layouts, rock music videos, workout tapes, ads for diet plans and assorted other mass-marketed images of contemporary beauty may be harmful to the professional, economic, social and physical well-being of women. Prolonged exposure may even prove fatal. Such a warning label would be not only appropriate but probably not even strong enough to suit Naomi Wolf, author of "The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women" (Morrow, $21.95). Her...

After two years of galvanizing changes that raised the consciousness and status of women, the feminist movement appears to be faltering. "As I spoke to women across the country," says Naomi Wolf, the author of the 1991 best-seller, "The Beauty Myth" (Doubleday, $11). "I realized that there was a gap between the feminist movement and its constituency. "While many women believe in the goals of the women's movement, they aren't comfortable calling themselves feminists," says Wolf, who adds that she...

Monday night. The Over-the-Hill Gals are stepping out. Destination: Barbara's Bookstore on North Broadway in Chicago for a talk by Naomi Wolf, author of "Fire with Fire," a new book with the provocative subtitle, "The New Female Power and How It Will Change the 21st Century." "Naomi Wolf?" says a friend of the Over-the-Hill Gals. "Is she that feminist who wants to be popular?" He says this as if a popular feminist were about as plausible as a waltzing fish. The Over-the-Hill...

As the owner of Company Management, a small New York modeling agency, Michael Flutie is a mere David in a world of high-gloss Goliaths. But he's slinging stones at conventional wisdom, hoping to topple some long-held beliefs, if only he can hit enough of the right noggins on Madison Avenue. You see, Flutie doesn't believe the beauty myth. He doesn't believe a woman has to have a perfect nose, perfect lips, a perfectly shaped face and be the perfect 5-foot-9-inch height to be beautiful or to be a model.